D is for Colora-DOors :)
From cave entrances and grand hotel thresholds to hot springs and historic streets, we explore the literal and metaphorical doors of Glenwood Springs—then bring it home with a master craftsman who’s turning a door into a table and inspiring new life in our own 1916 fixer-upper.
MENTIONED in this episode:
visitglenwood.com
https://www.glenwoodcaverns.com
speakeagle.com
Connect with Skip Ralls / Mindscape Metal Works:
• Facebook: Skip.Ralls
• Facebook: Mindscape Metal Works
• LinkedIn: Skip Ralls
• Web: Mindscapemetalworks.art
Mindscapemetalworks@gmail.com
Some places don’t just welcome you in—they change the way you walk back out. Glenwood Springs did that to us. We crossed grand hotel thresholds with presidential lore, ducked into vapor caves that once drew visitors just to see Edison bulbs glow, and rode a gondola to a mountaintop park where a gravity coaster let us choose our own speed. Between the laughter and the chill on our gloves, we kept circling the same idea: travel is a series of doors, and every one of them opens something new.
We sit down with Lisa Langer from Visit Glenwood Springs to map the town’s origin story—rivers rerouted to cradle mineral waters, a “Grand Dome of the Rockies” built to court the world, and the curious current that connects hot springs, rail lines, and resistance. The King’s Row cavern tour turns geology into theater: 3,000 formations, a UV-lit shimmer, and the slow patience of water shaping a room over thousands of years. A muddy hike to Doc Holliday’s memorial adds grit and myth, while Hotel Colorado’s corridors layer in Roosevelt’s balcony speeches, Al Capone’s retreats, and the enduring legend of a certain teddy bear.
Then we bring the theme home, literally. Our friend, master blacksmith and metal artist Skip Rawls, invites us into his forge where 1,800 degrees turns stubborn metal into meaning. He shows us how a weathered oak door becomes a dining table—steel-banded edges, hand-driven rivets, offset legs that make your eyes pause. Art, he says, is a doorway you want to open. From large-scale public works to custom staircases and furniture, Skip’s process is a study in trust, failure as feedback, and the joy of building pieces that people gather around for years.
We wrap with simple, practical ways to make your own thresholds speak: clear the path, warm the light, add something living, create a pause point, and let a single intentional detail set the tone. Ready to step through a new door this week—maybe even build one? Press play, travel with us from caves to coasters to the forge, and tell us which threshold you’re opening next. If this story moves you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more curious travelers can find the show.
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